Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Venrock Capital

Smartling Raises $10 Million for Quick Crowdsourced Translations

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:15:46 +0000

Crowdsourcing translation service Smartling has raised $10 million in funding to improve its localized language tech. Smartling’s investors include U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock, First Round Capital and IDG Ventures. Smartling has already gained some big-name customers, including Foursquare and Scribd. [GigaOM]

Aria Systems Raises $20 Million From InterWest, Hummer Winblad, and Venrock

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:11:49 +0000

Aria Systems is an on-demand billing and subscription management company that has raised $20 million in funding led by InterWest Partners, Hummer Winblad, and Venrock. Now Aria has raised a total of $34 million. Aria’s platform can handle the entire online transaction process from the beginning to the end. Aria can automate recurring revenue models to manage the lifecycle of subscribers. Aria clients include Disney, DreamWorks, and Roku. Aria plans to use the new funding for international expansion, product development, and building their sales/marketing teams.

Social Targeting Advertising Company Media6Degrees Raises $17 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 08:26:20 +0000

Media6Degrees is an advertising company that uses social media data for targeting purposes. The company has raised $17 million in a second round of funding from Menlo Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Venrock. The company plans to use the funding to expand their platform beyond display advertising. They plan to build an optimization platform for marketers and publisher companies. [DMWMedia]

Microsoft Invests In Real-Time Display Ad Bidding Company AppNexus

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:16:53 +0000

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has invested in AppNexus’ third round of funding. AppNexus raised a total of $50 million from multiple investors in this round of funding. AppNexus is a real-time display ad bidding service that is based in New York.

Former Yahoo! exec Brian O’Kelley serves as the CEO of AppNexus and former DoubleClick exec Michael Rubenstein is an exec in the company. According to Microsoft corporate VP of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group, Microsoft’s investment in AppNexus will “accelerate the availability of real-time demand via the Microsoft Advertising Exchange offering, providing broader access to our ad inventory.”

AppNexus will use the funding to create new products and expand globally. Other investors in this round of funding include Venrock, Kodiak Venture Partners, and First Round Capital.

[paidContent]

Martini Media Network Raises $6 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:14:52 +0000

San Francisco based online advertising company Martini Media has raised $6 million in funding. Martini Media ads are targeted towards wealthy people. Ads sold through Martini Media include yachts, private jets, golf events, etc. Invite only publishers are asked to be part of Martini Media. The investors behind this round of funding include publisher Reed Elsevier Ventures, Granite Ventures, and Venrock. Kevin Brown of Reed and Chris McKay of Granite joined the board of directors as part of the funding deal. They join Brian Ascher of Venrock, who is already on the board. Martini Media is led by CEO Skip Brand, a former Yahoo! and Pudding Media exec. [BizJournals]

iPhone App Developer Aha Mobile Raises $3 Million From Venrock

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:36:07 +0000

Aha Mobile is developing an iPhone application that is making a car-friendly application. Aha Mobile was pleased to announce earlier this week that they have raised $3 million in Series A funding from Venrock Capital.

Aha’s is working on an application that will provide features on traffic and construction notifications, a bathroom finder, and ways to find nearby coffee shops. There will be many other features that I have not discussed here, but those are just a few examples. The application is still in development too. There will also be voice recognition technology to identify search queries.

Aha Mobile will be a free application and is expected to launch sometime this summer. The CEO of Aha is Robert Acker.

[via TechCrunch]

BlogHer Raises $7 Million In Additional Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:33:05 +0000

BlogHer is a community for women who blog. Last July BlogHer raised $5 million in funding as part of a Series B round. Now the company has raised an additional $7 million round of funding as part of their Series C. This brings the company to a total investment of $15.5 million.

The participants of the new round of funding includes previous investors Venrock Capital and Peacock Equity. BlogHer gained attention for hosting First Lady Michelle Obama’s blog. BlogHer has about 2,500 bloggers in their network. There are about 30 direct employees of the company. BlogHer was started in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins. Stone currently serves as the CEO.

[via AllThingsD]